


A Wizard in the 21st Century

by kyrilu



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Ilvermorny, Alternate Universe - Politics, Character Study, Family, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-01-29 06:56:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21406045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrilu/pseuds/kyrilu
Summary: Alex Claremont-Diaz, growing up in the wizarding world.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 41
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	A Wizard in the 21st Century

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tinystreetlamp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinystreetlamp/gifts).

> Happy Yuletide! You mentioned you like Hogwarts AUs, and I, uh, decided to run with that. 
> 
> Mention of Alex/Henry and Alex/Liam, but this is mostly Alex-centric.

**i.**

The day that Alex finds out that his parents are divorcing, a Quod explodes in his face.

It’s not like that’s never happened to him before. He’s been on the Wampus Quodpot team ever since he was twelve, and he’d been playing Quodpot for years before that. Yet for all his athletic prowess, there’s bound to be the occasional accident. 

So the ball explodes, and it’s an apt metaphor for his life right now.

He’s learned to drop it in time and turn his broom away - to cross his arms and tuck his face at the right angle, his arm pads’ protective charms kicking into gear. But this time, he doesn’t, and he feels the sparks burn his face and neck, shrapnel digging into his skin.

“You’re an idiot,” June tells him. She’s sitting on a chair beside Alex’s bed in the healer’s office. Liam stands beside her, his brow furrowed in worry.

“I was a couple of feet away from the pot,” Alex points out.

“Still an idiot.”

“I got out okay, didn’t I?” Alex says. Gingerly, he touches the bandages on his cheeks and forehead. The healer must’ve applied some kind of anti-burn poultice that produces a cool numbing sensation. He notes that his hands are alright, at least, because of his charmed gloves.

“You’re only okay because Liam caught you,” June says. “He shouted a hover charm just as you fell off your broom.”

“Thanks, man,” Alex says, cheerily, addressing his friend-slash-teammate. Liam nods, but there’s still that slight frown on his face. “Hey, c’mon. It’s not that bad. I know you’re worried about my handsome good looks, but this’ll heal in time.”

Liam scoffs. “Well - at least it’s not as bad as the time you got into a duel with Weiss.”

Alex pauses. Christoph Weiss is a fellow fourth year who is also the son of a MACUSA member. They’ve had…disagreements...about politics, and Weiss hasn’t been flattering about Alex’s parentage.

Alex is the son of a half-blood witch who’s campaigned fiercely for the integration of No-Maj and magical society. Even with Rappaport’s Law overturned, there's still work to be done, fighting against strict anti-No-Maj laws that are still in the books, which often separate families through Obliviation and other means. Ellen Claremont has always lived with one foot in the No-Maj world, one foot in the magical world - her education is a mix of backgrounds, Ilvermorny and No-Maj university and magical law school - and she's the smartest person that Alex knows.

Alex is also the son of a wizard who had chosen to attend Ilvermorny instead of any of the magical schools in Mexico. An immigrant born to poor Mexican parents, Oscar Diaz climbed his way up in the American wizarding world as a lawyer. He pushes for more rights and recognitions for people from different cultural magical backgrounds, as well as supporting the rights of magical creatures - sure, house elves can wear clothes and are required by law to be employed rather than enslaved, but they’re still paid less dragots than the established wizarding human minimum wage.

The thought of his parents makes Alex wince. He had seen their divorce coming - of course they had, two volatile ambitious personalities reaching a breaking point - but that didn’t mean it didn’t sting. Oscar had Floo called Alex and June in the morning right before their first class had started. He was leaving to run for a MACUSA seat in California.

June takes one look at Alex’s face and seems to know exactly what he’s thinking. She sighs, and says lightly, “Maybe the burns _ will _ scar. Everyone will think you’re the next Harry Potter, and you’ll chuck Quods at the next Dark Lord.”

Alex cracks at smile at that. “I’ll tell Mr. Potter the next time he guest lectures here.”

**ii.**

Ilvermorny’s No-Maj Studies class is taught by Professor Alfonso Eduardos. Eduardos studied under Ellen Claremont during her brief stint as a professor. Every morning, Alex’s mom had portkeyed from Texas to lecture at her alma mater Salem University during Alex and June’s earlier years, so she’d be able to come home in the evenings without having to deal with the hectic life of a practicing lawyer.

Ellen Claremont published papers about MACUSA law and policies and their effects and injustices, while MACUSA members approached her for advice on drafting legislation. By the time Alex was old enough for kindergarten at the local magic school, she returned to her practice and subsequently launched her career in politics.

Eduardos knows a bunch of stories about his mother - her talent for gobstones; her blunt, informative presentation slides; her tendency to blast No-Maj music during office hours - and it’s kind of weird to be his student.

Still, it’s fascinating to learn about the world that Alex’s mother half-grew up in.

Field trips take them to New York City and to countless Boston museums. As Alex looks up at the polluted skies where you can’t see the stars, and the pictures of No-Maj creativity and suffering and conflict and innovation throughout history, he thinks, quietly, of the things that his mother and father strive for - a better, brighter, more connected world - and he can’t help but hope.

**iii.**

His mom’s new boyfriend Leo is a No-Maj. He attended university alongside Ellen, and she’d run into him in a No-Maj coffeeshop, and they’d caught up and one thing led to another. 

Home for the summer from Ilvermorny at fifteen, Alex doesn’t know what to think of Leo. Leo camps out in a spare-room-turned-workshop in Ellen Claremont’s Manhattan apartment near the Woolworth Building, tinkering with electronics. Leo’s intrigued by magic, but in a gentle, inquisitive way, and he’s not afraid to explain scientific concepts to the family.

“--and that’s why radioactive waste is a big problem,” Leo finishes, one day at the dining table. “Nuclear energy is clean and renewable, but its waste is toxic and dangerous, and we have to find disposal sites for storage.”

June is taking notes. “Mm, I see. We studied Chernobyl in No-Maj Studies class, but I didn’t realize how big of an issue nuclear energy is, especially here in the United States.”

Ellen nods. “These are the kinds of things I’m talking about when I tell MACUSA about the benefits of further intermingling our governments. Magic could advance both of our technologies.”

“A simple _ Evanesco _ to radioactive waste,” June says.

“But the theory of putting objects into nonbeing says you’re putting them into everything,” Alex says. “Does that put unstable atoms into the world, just dispersing them elsewhere? Or does it poof, disappear for good?”

“I’m pushing to start a research initiative on magic and sustainability,” Ellen says. "It’s slow going. My colleagues are incredibly cautious. They’re worried about breaking the Statute and exposing No-Majs to magic. It’s understandable - the fear of magic being seen as a weapon for No-Majs to exploit or target.”

“Magic can do a lot of good,” Alex says. “Like potions - healing spells-”

“I know, Alex,” she says.

She doesn’t even have to tell the stories. The relatives on the No-Maj side of her family who had passed away from illnesses and injuries, while she was eleven-twelve-thirteen-fourteen-fifteen-sixteen-seventeen, learning the wonders of magic at Ilvermorny.

But the other Congress representatives have a point, Alex thinks. No-Majs can be horrible. He’s seen plenty of guns growing up in Texas, openly carried by No-Majs despite news stories heralding the latest violent tragedy. What if they got their hands on weapons enhanced with dark curses?

And No-Majs are humans who can dislike those different from them, just as witches and wizards turn their heads up at werewolves and merpeople. Who’s to say wizarding society would be able to escape the force of prejudice and disdain by a population larger than them? The Salem Witch trials have been engraved into American magical society and memory like a permanent scar; Liam’s told Alex that the bedtime stories that wizarding parents often tell their children feature hangings.

“Maybe we should keep the worlds separate,” Alex says. “The Statute of Secrecy has been around for centuries. If magic hurts more than helps…”

“Alex,” Ellen Claremont says, “it’s a miracle that the No-Majs don’t know about us already. You’ve seen their technology - cameras, phones, the internet. We’ve been able to head off incidents with the combination of dumb luck, a joint FBI and FBCVNO taskforce, and No-Majs thinking that any filmed unusual footage is the result of special effects or PhotoShop. They’re going to find out about us eventually, and we have to be ready for integration.” She takes Leo’s hand as she says this, a quick squeeze of his hand.

This is the moment when Alex realizes that his mother will probably run for president of MACUSA, and she does, two years later.

**iv.**

Alex was raised in a household where he learns wandless magic just like he learns how to make tortillas and sopapillas. He and June unleash wisps of flour at each other with a wave of their palms, their clothes and hands and faces flushed cloud white, while their dad laughs and laughs.

He had thought that every kid knows how to do wandless magic on purpose, until he goes to school and realizes, no, it isn't common.

He asks his dad why, and Oscar Diaz smiles and touches Alex’s hands. “Because you’re a Diaz, _ mijo. _ We don’t wait around for wands, or depend on them. When I first went to Ilvermorny, I didn’t take any of the branches made by the wandmakers. Me and the others - Mexican kids, Native kids, the kids who didn’t look like the majority - we were used to the magic taught to us by our mothers and fathers. We knew Ilvermorny could give us opportunities and open doors, but we didn’t want to forget, either.”

“But you have a wand, Dad.”

“I do,” Oscar acknowledges. “But I made it myself. We wandered Mount Greylock and looked for material for wood and cores, so we could make our own wands. That’s the sort of thing you have to do, Alex. In some ways, you work within the system and establish a place within it - but you make it _ yours. _ You keep trying to change the rules and norms, but _ never _ forget yourself. Never forget your ideals and your beliefs and your family.”

On Alex's first day at Ilvermorny, he plucks a branch from a juniper tree and convinces a fairy to find a strand of mooncalf hair, which he carefully threads inside.

When he stands on the Gordian Knot, he is sorted into his mother's house, the house of warriors.

**v.**

The first and only time Alex kisses Liam, he is seventeen. They are in their Pukwudgie dorm alone, and while playing a game of exploding snap, Alex tackles Liam after losing a game, and they are intertwined on Liam's bed. They’ve jerked off together, and Liam’s finished Alex off once, a gentlemanly thing to do. But this is the first time that they kiss, Liam rubbing his thumb against Alex’s ear as he presses his tongue, presses warmth into his mouth. Alex is breathing him, tasting him, their hips a hard slow heat against each other.

Alex thinks that this doesn’t mean anything. He and Liam have known each other for years. Studying together. Practicing Quodpot. Alex showing Liam his favorite wandless magic tricks. Liam showing Alex his favorite comic books, moving illustrations of wizards who went on wild adventures. Hands brushing as they share a box of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor of Beans - they know which flavors the other likes and hates.

This is another small thing in their friendship, and all Alex can do is kiss deeper, deeply, dizzy, until the moment ends.

**vi.**

In many ways, Alex is spoiled.

He knows this. He is surrounded by politics like it’s another language he’s grown up speaking. It seems like he is automatically destined for this world that his mother and father have affected: the cases they’ve argued, the laws they’ve passed, the people they’ve met and influenced.

He has been given this world where his and June's bedtime stories are major court rulings as told by their mom, _Calderon Enterprises v. The Magical Congress of the United States of America; Anderson v. The __Agency for the Protection of Wizarding Secrecy _\- where he can go cliff-diving with his dad on the backs of thunderbirds - where his stepfather makes smartphones that he and Liam use to introduce Pokemon Go to Ilvermorny - where MACUSA members look him in the eye and take him seriously at fundraisers while he tells them about the people and creatures he's met on the campaign trail.

_ Claremont, Diaz_, and _ Claremont-Diaz _ are names for the textbooks.

Every day, the world seems to grow bigger, and he is proud when his mother is elected president. Alex continues to work hard just like he’s always had, because he wants to make this birthright his, just like his father told him. He wants to disregard any doubters and naysayers who think that this boy - this boy born to an idealistic half-blood witch and a crusading immigrant wizard - won’t come into his own.

As his mother continues to promote _integration, communication, diplomacy, _the First Family is invited to the Triwizard Tournament. Officially, President Claremont and MACUSA officials are there to cordially meet European Ministry of Magic officials in a friendly setting, and perhaps even brainstorm ideas for an American counterpart.

(Alex has so many suggestions before they leave for Scotland. A boxing match against Pukwudgies! Champions throwing Quods at each other! Dragon riding races! June has to push him into the portkey to shut him up.)

At the tournament, Alex sees a boy with tousled sandy hair and startling blue eyes watching on the sidelines. His name is Henry, and he’s descended from Britain's Sacred Twenty-Eight and supposedly even Godric Gryffindor himself. 

Alex has read news articles about Henry - his family had left Britain during the First War against Voldemort, but with his death in the Second War, they had returned. They had been taking the British wizarding world by a storm, old money and celebrity and practically nobility, and they were currently working alongside Minister Granger’s administration.

Alex introduces himself and holds out his hand. Henry doesn’t take it.

In this universe, like other universes, history starts here.


End file.
